Career
After graduating high school he joined the Marine Corps until 1955. He served in of Korea during 1953. After leaving the Marines he moved to California and eventually had a son with his then-wife Luana.
Wantling went to San Quentin State Prison in 1958 convicted of forgery and possession of narcotics.
During his imprisonment Luana divorced him and took custody of the child. He was released in 1963, and returned to Peoria.
In 1966 he enrolled at Illinois State University, where he received both a Bachelor and Master of Arts. He taught at the university up until his death on May 2, 1974. Wantling died of heart failure, possibly brought about by his extensive drug use.
Wantling alleged that he was the youngest Marine Sergeant (at 18) in combat.
He also claimed that he spent ten days in a coma and eight weeks in the hospital recovering from burns after the jeep he was riding in hit a landmine, causing a 50-gallon barrel of gasoline on the jeep to ignite. is about the failure of classic poetic devices to capture the reality and brutality of prison life. West.D. Ehrhart attempted to reconstruct Wantling"s life by looking at military and prison records. He concluded that:..what little we know about his life has already become distorted and mythologized, fiction made fact by constant repetition." As a consequence it seems that much of Wantling"s biography must be taken with a certain amount of scepticism.